FARMINGTON — Roger Condit of Farmington waved an American flag Tuesday as the parade of emergency vehicles escorted Capt. Scott Baxter along Route 27 to the Fire Station 43 days after he was critically injured in a propane explosion.

Dozens of firefighters and others standing outside the station saluted and applauded Baxter on his arrival in a firetruck that blocked him from the public’s view to protect his privacy. He was released from a rehabilitation center in Portland earlier in the day, and picked up in a firetruck at the Rome town line on Route 27.

“I didn’t want to miss this,” Condit’s wife, Karyl, said. “It is very important to honor these men and everything they have been through. It is my way of saying thank you.”

She and her husband were among many people who lined the route, saluting and applauding the 37-year-old captain.

Mike Ladd of Farmington, who lives near the Fire Station, was among them.

“I bet they’re happy for Scott to come home,” Ladd said of Baxter’s family, friends and fellow firefighters.

He said he has watched the processions for each of the six injured firefighters as they were escorted home after the Sept. 16 blast that took the life of Capt. Michael A. Bell, 68.

He said he knows all of them involved in the explosion, including Chief Terry Bell, 62; Capt. Tim “TD” Hardy, 40; Deputy Chief Clyde Ross, 82; firefighter Theodore “Ted” Baxter, 64; and firefighter Joseph Hastings, 24.

Scott Baxter was the last one to return to Farmington after being hospitalized.

Ladd said he also knows Larry Lord, 61, of Jay, the LEAP maintenance supervisor who remains in serious condition at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. He suffered severe burns over half of his body, broken bones and other injuries, according to information posted on a GoFundMe site.

“We missed them, Ladd said. “We are happy about them coming home. I can’t wait for them to go back to work. I am saddened about the loss of Capt. Bell.”

When firefighters are called to an emergency, Ladd said he can’t help but hear the sirens.

On the morning of Monday, Sept. 16, he was working at the Farmington Fair when the explosion at 313 Farmington Falls Road shook the fairground buildings, he said.

The blast occurred minutes after firefighters arrived at the office building where Lord reported the smell of propane in the basement and got about a dozen workers out.

Investigators discovered that some of the hundreds of gallons of propane pumped into a tank Sept. 13 had leaked from a broken line under the parking lot into the basement. What caused the leak and what sparked the explosion remain under investigation.

 

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